After Luna went to bed, I opened my laptop and reviewed our finances.
I earn approximately $68,000 a year.
It’s enough to provide for us, but we’re certainly not wealthy.
Yet for four consecutive years, I’d covered nearly every expense associated with my parents’ Christmas celebrations.
Then I opened my banking application.
There it was.
Recurring mortgage payment: $1,412 per month.
I’d made forty-one full payments, in addition to several earlier contributions.
My parents lived in a beautiful brick colonial house in Asheville’s Grove Park neighborhood.
My father had purchased it when his insurance business was successful.
But in 2021, his agency collapsed.
He’d borrowed against the house to keep the business running, missed mortgage payments, and eventually faced foreclosure.
My mother called me in tears one night in March 2022.
I drove over at two in the morning.
They owed $61,800 in overdue mortgage payments and fees, plus another $14,000 on a second loan.
